In Defense of Human Rights: A Non-Religious Grounding in a Pluralistic World

by Ari Kohen

The argument that religion provides the only compelling foundation for human rights is both challenging and thought-provoking and answering it is of fundamental importance to the furthering of the human rights agenda. This book establishes an equally compelling non-religious foundation for the idea of human rights, engaging with the writings of many key thinkers in the field, including Michael J. Perry, Alan Gewirth, Ronald Dworkin and Richard Rorty. Ari Kohen draws on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a political consensus of overlapping ideas from cultures and communities around the world that establishes the dignity of humans and argues that this dignity gives rise to collective human rights. In constructing this consensus, we have succeeded in establishing a practical non-religious foundation upon which the idea of human rights can rest. In Defense of Human Rights will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, philosophy, religious studies and human rights.

Genres: Philosophy

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Jakub Ferencik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is less of a review & more of a critique of linguistic philosophy. Academic books are not my favorite. This one was easier to read because it was summarizing arguments by Dworkin, Rawls, and the likes (all from the 20th century). Still. It makes you wonder, how much influence can academics have outside their fields if their arguments are linguistic (& theoretical) rather than empirical.

I'm starting to think that empirical arguments are really the only ones that are worth anything. This book for example looks at the word "freedom" and says that the lack of it is untrue by definition. The same is true about "breaking promises." You can not break a promise because it wouldn't be a promise. All of this is true. The conclusion? That you cannot impose on others since we were all born free. I must be misrepresenting this in its intricacy, but the core of the argument is the same.

Trying to summarize all the arguments in this book would be impossible. In reality, it does not matter if there is no such thing as breaking promises. People will still break them. People will still lie. But if you show them the actual - empirical - ramifications of breaking promises & lying, then there may be hope. I know it's helped me. I am open to rebuttals, however. If any linguistic philosopher wants to defend his field, I'd love to hear all about it.